Best of 2017: Local music hits all the right notes

By Jay N. Miller/For The Patriot Ledger

Thursday

Dec 21, 2017 at 11:41 AMDec 21, 2017 at 1:21 PM

Last week we wrote about our 10 favorite albums from the past year. But like any music lover, we can’t limit ourselves to an arbitrary number like that when there’s so much floating around waiting to be discovered.

This week we’ll look at some of the most outstanding music produced by locals, whether South Shore, Boston, or New England musicians. The best part is that these folks are performing regularly in the region, and fans can probably track them down on nearly any weekend.

“THE HAMMER AND THE HEART” by SUSAN CATTANEO (Jersey Girl Music) Cattaneo is a South Shore resident, who has also taught songwriting at Berklee College of Music for the last decade. Her music fits firmly in the Americana genre, but also encompasses nearly every shading of that category. Here she has released a double album backed by a veritable all-star team of the region’s musicians, as well as some notable guests like Missouri’s Bottle Rockets, and rockabilly guitar ace Bill Kirchen. Not just a tour de force of American roots music, this is just a fun collection of terrific songs, done by topnotch musicians.

The songs here are mostly Cattaneo originals, although a lot of co-writes with her fellow artists, and the result is a double album of incredible scope and stylistic variety. People talk about artists willing to take chances, and Cattaneo certainly does, with almost all positive results. Take the tune “Work Hard, Love Harder,” a paean to living in the moment but also having the right priorities. The song opens the album in a surging roadhouse rocker with the singer backed by the grit and fire of The Bottle Rockets. But then it also opens the second CD, in a more wistful folkie version with Cattaneo singing with The Boxcar Lillies, the Western Massachusetts trio she’s joined for the past year. It’s a bold and marvelous method of hearing the song from different angles, and enjoying the sheer skill of her songwriting.

A bit later, Cattaneo shares “The River Always Wins” with her co-writer of the song, Somerville songwriter Mark Erelli, and it becomes a subtle swamp-rocker, lending a haunting quality to the contemporary life in the lyrics. Later on, speaking of today’s world, Cattaneo does a gripping take on Mose Allison’s classic “Everybody’s Crying Mercy,” with just Jesse Williams’ acoustic bass and Marco Giovino’s soft drums, in an arrangement that highlights all the colors and nuances in her vocal. There’s a bit of rockabilly fire when Kirchen joins her for “In the Grooves,” but his duet with her on “When Love Goes Right” is traditional honky tonk, done superbly.

Cattaneo’s cover of Buddy and Julie Miller’s song “Does My Ring Burn Your Finger?” is stunning, both for Erelli’s guitar and Jim Henry’s mandolin and dobro, but also for her own evocative vocal. A rendition of her own “Ordinary Magic” with just Kevin Barry’s acoustic guitar is simply delectable. And then, for the album’s concluding cut, who can resist Cattaneo, and Boston-area favorites Amy Fairchild and Todd Thibaud harmonizing on a spacey folk-rock take on David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” as Lorne Entress crafts all manner of weird astral sounds behind them.

“CROOKED ROAD SONGS” by MICHAEL DINALLO & FRIENDS (Black Rose Records) DiNallo is a Boston-area music veteran, perhaps best known as one of The Radio Kings blues-rock quartet which earned a record deal with Icehouse Records of Memphis and toured the world in the 1990s. (DiNallo’s cohort in The Radio Kings, vocalist Brian Templeton is now singing for Plymouth’s superb Delta Generators.) DiNallo has been working on production, and has been out of the spotlight in recent years, except as guitarist for the rockabilly group Juliet and the Lonesome Romeos – Juliet also being Mrs. DiNallo. This six-song EP is a chance for him to stretch out and unveil his six-string mastery again. DiNallo surrounds himself with some first class help, as on the gently rocking “Lonesome Road Blues,” where Tim Gearan sings lead and plays guitar, with Kevin Barry giving the quintet a three-guitar attack. The darker atmospherics of “In the Pines” offers a more fuzz-toned type of sound. Three of the songs feature DiNallo in a stripped down trio with Barrence Whitfield on vocals and Ducky Carlisle on bass drum, and “Mr. Johnson” boasts dazzling acoustic and electric guitar work and a 1960’s psychedelic blues feel. “Waiting for a Better Day” is a shimmering, soulful ballad that proves DiNallo’s songwriting abilities are still among the best in roots rock. Catch DiNallo Saturday night at Toad in Porter Square, Cambridge.

“BETWEEN THE BARS” by MATT YORK (www.MattYorkMusic.com) Pembroke’s York showed lots of potential with his 2015 debut album, “Boston, Texas” which hewed pretty close to country-rock throughout its nine songs. This six-song EP shows tremendous growth, in the sense that he isn’t limiting himself to any one genre, but rather finding his own voice and sound. “All Over the Town” for example kicks off in the kind of raw-edged rock-with-twang you might find with Jason and the Scorchers. But then the mood shifts with “Honktown Hangover,” the kind of Memphis-style r&b, where Ken Clark’s organ suggests Booker T is coming off a hard weekend. “When the War Began” takes matters in a 1950s rock direction, with a serio-comic tale of romantic woe. Then it’s a South of the Border ballad, the lilting, acoustic-guitar centered “September’s Coming Soon.” There’s a retro tone reminiscent of Bob Dylan or John Prine to the darker “Man Who Does Nothing,” while “Calling for You” will remind listeners of Chris Isaak with its mysterious, mesmerizing tale of lost love. York’s debut was enjoyable music, although it seemed in places he was being too careful, but on this new EP he’s confident and taking chances, and it’s a heady ride. Kudos as well to his band of Joe McMahon on bass and piano, Johnny Trama on guitar, Clark on organ, Matthew Girard on trumpet, and Dave Brophy on drums.

“QUIET MONEY” by AL BASILE (Sweetspot, Box 4723, Rumford, R.I. 02916) Rhode Island’s Basile is a Roomful of Blues alumnus who has crafted this album as an unvarnished look at a musician’s life. Duke Robillard, who produced the album , also plays guitar with a band heavy on that Roomful connection, including Rich Lataille on tenor sax, Doug James on saxes, Bruce Bears on piano, Brad Hallen on bass, Doc Chanonhouse on trumpet, and Mark Teixeira on drums, with Basile singing and playing cornet. The excellent liner notes have Basile admitting he’s based most of his songs musically on the big band jump blues and swing of the 1940s and ‘50s, and the 13 original tunes are fascinating modern takes on those styles. Basile takes a candid look at the state of making music for a living in “Blues Got Blues,” which could easily pass for a Roomful number. The title cut blends a big band horn arrangement with a creeper beat, as Basile examines income inequality as the musicians see it. There’s a contemporary lyrics melded to classic jump blues on “I Woulda been Wrong,’ and also a scorching Robillard solo. The transient nature of life, and time’s inexorable passage are the subject of “Not Today,” a loping ballad with appealing melodic flow. And more than a few music-makers may pause and consider “Who’s Gonna Close My Eyes?” a sweet, midtempo r&b song that finds the singer evocatively pondering what he’s given up to follow his muse.

ODDS AND ENDS: Among many other things that caught our fancy this year, Son Volt’s “Notes of Blue” marked that band’s triumphant return to the front rank of Americana rockers. Augie Meyers, charter member of the Sir Douglas Quintet and The Texas Tornados, had the equal parts wacky and sensitive “Monkeys on Cocaine,” an album he recorded with Frank Carillo and the Bandoleros, the upstate New York band he uses on East Coast gigs – Augie can break your heart on one song and then tickle your funnybone on the next, just like he always could. The Old Crow Medicine Show’s “50 Years of Blonde on Blonde” was a cool re-interpretation of Bob Dylan’s groundbreaking album (possibly the genesis of Americana). Joan Osborne’s “Songs of Bob Dylan” was a tasteful trip through Bob’s songbook. I don’t know much about California’s Steven Graves, except he’s pals with Dennis McNally and some of the extended Grateful Dead family, but his “Captain Soul” album was one of this year’s most consistently pleasing CDs, rock and soul with bite, and the sort of buttery melodies you remember.